On Dad

I ran into the mother of one of my old grade school friends earlier today. She is a family friend, a member of my parish, and she acted as my sponsor for the sacrament of Confirmation. We spoke for ten or fifteen minutes: I asked about Andrew, she about my family; I told her about applications and comprehensive examinations and such. As I was talking, there was a moment when she smiled at me, telling me that she could see my father in me. I smiled and thanked her, knowing she meant it as a complement. She proceeded to share with me her deep appreciation for my father and his wisdom. Dad had apparently given her quite a few of his articles and writings over the years, starting around the time when her husband was dying of cancer. She told me about how much these works of my father meant to her, and how she treasures these writings even now.

I can't think of a time when I haven't held my father in high esteem. After all, he is perhaps the biggest reason that I have come to recognize my own calling to study theology. Dad is a theologian--I could almost say 'the' theologian, since this is what he was to me. He is a teacher, a thinker, a writer, a lover, a father, an activist in the pro-life movement. Dad is also gentle and loving and kind, a good Catholic. I sometimes call him 'my saint.' I've always looked up to him as a person, as a good Christian man.

For much of my life, I also looked up to him as an intellectual. Dad is a remarkably and refreshingly clear thinker. He received a good philosophical and theological grounding in the neo-Scholastic tradition back in his seminary days. He also sees himself as heavily influenced by the thought of Karl Rahner. He makes good distinctions and is very careful about his diction, especially when talking theology. His theological positions are highly informed and well-reasoned. And he knows a whole lot, let me tell you. Though his doctoral concentration was on ecclesiology, he describes himself as a 'generalist'; accordingly, he has written something on almost every theological topic I can name.

My own training in theology was, of course, different from his. The 'Neo-Scholastic paradigm'--so they tell me--has fallen out of style as the dominant approach to doing theology. Yes, I studied Aristotle, and even a little Aquinas, and I like what I've read. Still, in my theology classes it just so happens that I've heard much more about folks like Lonergan and Rahner, and even Hans Urs von Balthasar, than I have about St. Thomas and the later scholastics. I'm familiar with some of the classic Thomistic distinctions, but in large part I don't use them. My categories are different. My questions are different. My foundations are different.

I've been doing a little proofreading for Dad lately, so I've been reading some of the material he gives to his introductory students. The material is not bad in terms of its content; in fact, in some cases it's very informative. I don't disagree with any of it. At the same time, I can't say that I'd ever want to express myself in the same terms. Enough of it is delivered in an apologetical tone that it comes off at times as defensive, as I'm sure the students have noticed. I wonder sometimes how helpful this kind of presentation is for the vast majority of his students, who are very likely to be either lukewarm or lapsed Catholics. I wonder just how many of them feel 'talked down to.' I wonder whether they could possibly find in this material some nourishment for their faith, or whether it sits with them as just one more indigestible lump of stale catechetical bread.

I had expressed this attitude of mine towards my Dad's work much more bluntly at a dinner in the home of the late Fr. William Cenkner, some years before I entered college. Dad was telling one of his stories to Fr. Cenkner, one that I had heard before, with which I suppose I had grown particularly bored. Fr. Cenkner must have seen it on my face, and he asked me for an explanation. I took the opportunity to announce to them both that I had already learned all there was to learn from my father's wisdom. Fr. Cenkner immediately scolded me for my arrogance, praising Dad's scholarship and theological acumen. I didn't listen to him, though; I just kept moving forward on my project to 'move beyond' my father as a thinker and a theologian.

And so the comments of my friend's mother this morning gave me pause. Here was someone who had truly found a word of hope in my father's work--a word to 'rouse' her. I have known for some time that such people exist: Dad is always talking about all the former students he has run into and who have expressed great appreciation for his class. Heck, I've run into some of them myself. I suppose, though, that I was in need of a reminder, and that's just what I got earlier today. Though I have been critical of his language and approach, Dad's writings have actually touched people's lives. So perhaps I have been a bit hasty in my efforts to 'move beyond' his work. I pride myself on theological sophistication, and I believe my own work to be rather compelling. But if all I manage to do with my theological education is to satisfy myself, I will not have become half the theologian that my father has proven himself to be.

I'm not my father, and I don't ever intend to 'theologize' in quite the way he does. But I am my father's son, and I continue to aspire to do theology just as well as he does.

On Dancing with Men and Women

I admit it: I like dancing with men.

But this statement must be placed in its proper context, lest it be misunderstood. First of all, I have contradancing especially in mind, as opposed to couple dances like ballroom or swing or tango. Though contradancing entails dancing with a partner, it usually involves at least three other couples at a time. Contradancers will typically find themselves dancing with someone other than their partners for something like half the dance, and it is not uncommon that that one should find oneself dancing with a dancer of the same sex. To actually select an individual of the same sex as one's partner is a separate question.

Second, and I want to stress this point, to say that I like dancing with men is not to say that I do not like dancing with women. In point of fact, I do like to dance with women; I like it very much. It's a bit difficult to say why in general, because not every girl dances alike. Some are very cooperative, and they make dancing a comfortable and pleasant experience. Others like to shake things up, and I appreciate their spunk; those dances are lively and sometimes silly. In any event, I see no pressing need to prove that dancing with women is fun. If I did not like dancing with women, I probably wouldn't have stuck with dancing for as many years as I have.

That being said, two characteristics have generally distinguished my experiences dancing with men from those dancing with women. In the first place: when I dance with a woman, particularly a woman I do not know, I feel like I'm under some pressure to keep her entertained. For me, there's no such pressure when dancing with a man. I'm not trying to impress him or anything; we're just dancing. So I find it easier to let loose. And in a similar vein: though all my training in dancing has taught me to be gentle to my partners, I have far fewer reservations being rough with another guy than with a girl. That's just the way I've learned to relate to other men, namely, by roughing them up a little. Brothers beat each other up--it's that simple. So while able-bodied guys and girls can perform some remarkably energetic swings, two guys, I take it, have no qualms about hurling each other to opposite ends of the dance floor.

Take last Friday's contra, for example. The first dance that night had a part where the two guys go to the center of the line, balance and pull by right into a do-si-do, which turns into an allemande right once-and-a-half, from which each sends the other to his partner for a swing. Besides being a really cool sequence with a little false start and then a bunch of spins, it gives us two or three opportunities to really pummel each other, as well as a chance to build up some serious momentum to transition us into our respective swings. I definitely checked my share of right arms that night, and got checked right back just as often. And we flew out of those allemande rights like friggin' cannonballs at our partners. I ended up sore and bruised, but I had a great night.

When the caller first ran through the guys' part of the dance, I turned to my partner and said, "This is going to be a fun dance!" Her eyes got wide, and she looked at me as if to say, "Did he just say that?"

Is it really all that gay to like dancing with other men?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

On Being a Moderate So-Called

Today at lunch, one of my grad buddies tried to come up with a brief description of my theological posture for the benefit of one of his friends. And so it happened, for the first time ever I think, that I was described as a "moderate." My buddy apparently meant it as a complement. By it he intended something like: "This guy is not a mindless follower. He thinks for himself, and what he thinks is interesting."

I appreciated his sentiment. I certainly would like to think of myself as one who thinks and is capable of thinking. On the other hand--as you have probably guessed by this point--I am not too big a fan of his choice of words. For some time now the idea of a "moderate" has been a pet peeve of mine. Or, to be more precise: it upsets me that to some, the label "moderate" seems to be that without which one is incapable of entering into an honest intellectual discussion. This elevation of the "moderate" amounts to saying that one cannot identify oneself or be identified as, for example, "conservative" or "liberal," and hope to be taken seriously by another intelligent person.

Perhaps this sentiment--I refer to the elevation of the "moderate"--is an indication of the lasting effect of the Nicomachean Ethics on our culture. That virtue lies on a mean between two extremes has virtually been written on the heart of any good Westerner. It is unfortunate that not quite as many recall Aristotle's corrolary to this dictum: it usually happens that the mean lies somewhat closer to one of the extremes than the other. (Cf. 1109a 1-19 [pp. 962-63 in the McKeon edition].) I cite the text here because of its critical importance and because it appears that it has been all but totally neglected these days. Courage really does look a lot more like recklessness than cowardice, which means that the virtuous one runs a greater risk of upsetting the cowards than the reckless folk. But this isn't a bad thing, since the courageous person isn't measured by the reckless or the cowardly. Quite the contrary: she herself is the measure of the cowardly and the reckless.

"Moderate" takes the Aristotelian idea of virtue and cleanses it of all content, until what remains is stark naked, totally empty, and utterly droll. The word means absolutely nothing, and so to call someone a moderate is to say nothing at all. I can think of only one advantage to the descriptor: it tells someone that my stance cannot be summarized in a few words, that if one wishes to know what I think, one will surely have to consult the horse's mouth. One would have to do me the outstanding courtesy of actually asking me what I think! This usage of a term like "moderate" can be justified only in a culture whose default stance is to deny me precisely that courtesy, to deny me my "day in court." Just because I am a "liberal" or a "conservative." What rubbish.

The way I see it, if some people call me conservative, and others call me liberal, then perhaps it means I'm doing something right. But moderate? What should I think of that?

Maybe I need to try to tick more people off.

On the Freedom of (Budding) Theologians

Fr. Joseph Komonchak is a wise man. Or at least I've always thought so, since I had him in class as an undergrad. There is just something about the way he teaches that seems to give him a venerable and authoritative, as well as somewhat endearing, air. To put this another way: in class, Komonchak is fairly good at maintaining the appearance of moderateness. He seems to disclose the history of theology in a way that does justice to the treasures of each age and the virtues of each figure. His favorites are clear enough, but he maintains a consistent and non-polemical tone throughout. He comes across, in a word, as the one who seeks wisdom wherever it can be found. At least, as I said, this is how I remember him.

Fr. Komonchak's "tone," as I have described it above, has made it difficult for me to disagree with the man. After all, he is the venerable senior historian-theologian in the school, and I but the lowly grad student still wet behind the ears. He has studied the great texts, innumerable primary sources spanning the whole Christian era, and I haven't even finished the slim list of books for my comprehensive exam in the spring. He reads Latin for fun, doubtless tackling large chunks of stylistically sophisticated material each week with his little reading group, and I've struggled for a week trying to translate a few pages of French. Who am I to contradict this wizened fellow?

So it was for me a truly liberating experience when, in class this past Wednesday, I discovered that I have a substantial disagreement with the man over a fundamental theological-methodological issue, and let him know to his face. Komonchak, whose class proposes to help us find reasonable grounds to make foundational theological commitments, cited the work of Avery Dulles as a kind of foil for his position. He claimed that Dulles's understanding of the method of models, which he had famously employed in his books Models of the Church and Models of Revelation, amounts to a kind of eclecticism that avoids the problem of making fundamental decisions by suspending that decision indefinitely. On his reading, Dulles's work in models fails to generate a fruitful theological approach and, therefore, fails altogether to do systematic theology. Komonchak also reduces Dulles's method of models in effect to what he has called "picture thinking," which he ridicules on the grounds that we simply don't think in pictures. At least, he himself does not, or so he believes.

Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but raise the issue in class. I told him that I thought his reading of Dulles and the models method was off the mark. I conceded that a mere exposition of models was not systematic theology properly speaking. Nevertheless, Dulles does show models to be a useful tool in elaborating theology, and one that does not obviate any need for genuine theological commitments. Models essentially set up a problematic for theology, highlighting aspects of a theological "object" that would need to be held together in a systematic theology. Theology itself is a committed task, a thinking task that takes place in the tension between the models. In terms of Lonergan, I would say that the examination of models more or less exactly coincides with the "dialectical" specialty in systematic theology. To show that Dulles is himself a committed theologian and not just a pseudo-neutral model-monger, I pointed out that Dulles himself expresses clear preferences for certain models over others, even though he ultimately denies that a "super-model" that would exhaust any need for other models can be developed. His preferences are also expressed in the seven criteria he uses to evaluate the various models. I also said that Dulles's clear commitments are even more obvious in the second half of Models of Revelation, which as it were goes beyond the five models he had previously proposed to elaborate a truly systematic contribution to the theology of revelation.

I think that this disagreement was ultimately a healthy event for myself and the class. After my comment, Komonchak stood by his position while making a move to consolidate his authority on the issue of Dulles and models: he noted his extensive study of Models of the Church and his ongoing correspondence with Cardinal Dulles. But his comments were not quite sufficient to end the discussion. Though Komonchak tried to move on to another topic, another student raised a question on the Dulles issue only a few minutes later, asking whether Komonchak could comment on Dulles's method in Models of Revelation. Komonchak confessed that he had not read that book in some time and so could not comment. Without trying to utterly undermine the "air of wisdom" I mentioned at the beginning of these words, or the legitimate bases for it, I will suggest that in the wake of this issue the class as a whole has become a bit more willing to take Komonchak's opinions with a grain of salt.